18 I CHRONICLESnrhyme, but notice how the hght syllable echoes the indistinctnbut similar sound obscured by the n of pliant.nNavrozov makes ebullient use of such things in his ownnwork:nGeisha—gazelle or gypsy,nQuietly sad or sly?nWild, like spring in Ipswich,nSudden, like winter’s flight?nThe wildness of spring in Ipswich is nicely qualified by then”wild” rhyme.nI do not know how far Dylan Thomas’ experimentsnduplicate or overlap Pasternak’s, but he has a very interestingndevelopment of what I think of as vowel-chime, wherenone consonant is repeated in varied endings and the echo isnreinforced by pararhyme:nBe your ghost pierced, his pointed ferule,nBrass and the bodiless image, on a stick of follynStar-set at Jacob’s angle.nSmoke hill and hophead’s valley.nAnd the five-fathomed Hamlet on his father’s coral.nThrusting the tom-thumb vision up the ironnmile , . .nI’m sure someone could use the system for a real poem.nWhether from tinkering with syllabic verse a la French ornfrom certain Gaelic influences, another system of rhyme isnone that ignores equivalence of stress. Marianne Moore hasnmany stray examples: Ming/something and, in modernnpronunciation, defense/experience from “Gritics and Connoisseurs.”nAustin Glarke and Seamus Heaney also seem tonuse this type of rhyme, though no more systematically.nUsed systematically it can have a poignant effect:nAnd my hand, still dark to white on yours, thoughnwizened.nEnough now, was it ever enough to hold you,nthis touch no words came close to in the end?nLove, leave the crazy tock of moth to window,nthe lamplight’s cone an auburn head shinesnthrough.nGatch again the splendor of light in the wine-glow.nAgain, it frees rhyme and meter from the necessity ofnendlessly stressed line-ends.nAnother system may have come about from the influencenof Gaelic or a systematizing of near rhymes traditionallynused in tight spots. It is known as generic rhyme, whichnconsists of matching consonants in families for rhymenaccording to their phonetic groupings. Examples fromnGaelic—which I don’t speak—may be: bec/feit; faid/haig/nchraib. English groupings might be river/thither/stiffer ornbulb/pulp.nThere are many other new rhyme schemes of greater andnlesser ingenuity which space forces me to omit. Yet I mustnmention one of the most complex uses of rhyme whichnAuden employed on occasion: assonahng the rhymes ofndifferent pararhymes;nThat night when joy begannOur narrowest veins to flush.nWe waited for the flashnnnOf morning’s levelled gun.nYou have to be as skillful as an Auden to go very far withnthat.nI have a suspicion that Owen, a tireless experimenter,nwas moving towards a synthesis of these systems into whatncould only be called musical rhyme involving the modulationnof one rhyme into another by assonantal or consonantalnoverlap. A hint of it shows in “Insensibility”:nBut cursed are dullards whom no cannon stuns.nThat they should be as stones;nWretched they are, and meannWith paucity that never was simplicity.nBy choice they made themselves immunenTo pity and whatever moans in mannBefore the last sea and the helpless stars;nWhatever mourns when many leave these shores;nWhatever sharesnThe eternal reciprocity of tears.nThe st oistuns/stones is echoed in the mid-line paucity andnits partner simplicity and caught up in reciprocity. It returnsnin the pararhyme stars, whereupon the final consonantnbecomes an echo in shores as r{e}s ends the last fournpararhymes. There are signs that the poem was not finalized,nbut it seems the way Owen’s mind was moving.nIn this short article, I have listed about eight rhymensystems now available to poets, not counting the opportunitynoffered by this last one. It seems to me that poets nownhave the freedom to choose a rhyme system as they oncenchose a meter and that this freedom is a greater, morenexpressive one than the freedoms in what now passes for freenverse. Indeed, they should continue the advances bequeathednthem and refine some of these techniques. Whennone’s ear is attuned to these things, it becomes clear that anpoem may dictate its own rhyme scheme as it chooses itsnown meter. I will end with a poem that did so but refrainnfrom further analysis:nIt’s baffling, every time I pass, this shifty sensenthat you had known the place, that we werenintimatesnof something here: a path; this now vestigialntrack; which wildflower clump? what leafy fugitivenwhose glimpse we’d made our own? But nothingntangible . . .nWhat is this? The lane is gone wherever itngoes …nNever much of a one in my experiencenfor walks or views, why play the local geniusnof diminutions? We never were unanimous;nwhat chance you’d keep omniscience to a picnicnspot?n— I get you echoing, your voice a little wearier:n”Moments we had, the days, our days, arenvanishing.”nLook there! Ladies’-slippers. Will they satisfy?nLet them. I’ll track them down again. I promisenyou.n